Kiwi

Last Wednesday Kiwi was at the groomer's for her first haircut in almost three months. The groomer noticed a lump on her back. It is on her left side in front of her hip. The groomer recommended getting it checked out. I called last Wednesday and made an appointment for Kiwi to get checked out by the vet on Saturday morning. After talking to some friends whose dogs had also had lumps I felt pretty certain that it wasn't anything too serious. When I took her in on Saturday I just expected her to have the lump checked and to get her shots. The vet checked the lump and seemed quite concerned about it and said we would forgo the shots today and that we should plan to bring her back in for some x-rays and a fluid aspiration biopsy.

I took her in and left her for the day yesterday. At the end of the day when I picked her up they said the x-rays hadn't revealed anything and that they got a good amount of fluid out of the lump for analysis. We were told they would have the results for us within 24-48 hours. When I got home from work this evening there was a message on the machine from the vet. She called at 5:30pm when the clinic was just about to close. She said the results were in and that I could give her a call in the evening on her cell phone. I knew at that moment that it probably wasn't good news that she had.

I called her right away and she said that they had found cancer cells in her biopsy. She said that the next step was to determine what sort of cancer it is so they know how to treat it. The way they do that is to take blood tests and to put Kiwi out to take a piece of the lump for analysis. From there they may need to remove the lump or come up with some other sort of treatment.

Jay and I have already discussed our options.....I can't believe our little 15 month old dog has cancer. I totally thought it would be nothing....that it would just be a couple hundred dollars to find out that our little poochie was perfectly healthy, but just lumpy. Now I imagine all told this is going to cost us a couple of thousand dollars. *sigh* How do you put a price on the health of a loved one. I know she is just a dog, and we did decide at what point we would not bother with continuing treatment. She is still a young dog and could potentially live for another 15 years. We will do what we can, but I refuse to pay thousands of dollars over the years to pay for medications or crazy treatments. Kiwi seems absolutely perfectly healthy, she has no other symptoms. I don't want her to get sick, but man is it expensive. Should have invested in the pet health insurance....